Travel weary Spurs take Manhattan

For the oldest team in the NBA, the prospect of playing any back-to-back is tough. The prospect of playing a back-to-back in which the second game has an unconventional early start is tougher. The prospect of doing that after arriving in the second city around 3:30 a.m. is tougher still.

That is the situation the Spurs face tonight in the Big Apple against the Knicks.

Due to wintry conditions in Milwaukee on Saturday night, the team charter plane sat on the airport runway an extra hour while waiting to be de-iced. The bus assigned to pick them up in New York was running late. All told, the Spurs — players, coaches and support staff — did not check into the Four Seasons in midtown Manhattan until around 3:30 a.m.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich knows the weather is out of anyone’s control. In his pregame meeting with reporters moments ago, however, he questioned the league schedule-makers for the early tip in New York.

“It makes a lot of sense,” he said, sarcastically. “I think any team that can get in the night before a back-to-back and go to bed at three or four in the morning, and play at six the next day, I think it’s a good thing. I think more of us should do that. It puts a good product out on the floor.”

Some coaches, notably Houston’s Rick Adelman this season, have complained to the league about its schedule-making policies. Popovich said he wasn’t prepared to go there.

“I know it’s got to be difficult, with how many iterations are there, 30 teams and all these games,” Popovich said. “I don’t use them, because I’m not smart enough, but I know there’s these things called computers that can figure all that stuff out. I would think they would probably do that. So it must be something I don’t understand. Trips like this don’t make any sense.”

Before he concluded his assault on the schedule, Popovich made it clear he would not accept the early start as an excuse should his team perform poorly tonight.

“It happens to everybody at some point,” Popovich said, “so it’s not like it’s unfair.”